to think that estate agents are grossly overpaid for the little work they actually do?

[wannaBe]

so let's see what they actually do:

come out and give a valuation.
take a few pictures
write up a description.
put it up on a website
maybe mailshot a few people.
take a few phone calls to arrange viewings.
sometimes accompany viewings.

And all for between 1.5 and 3% of the value of the house.

Couldn't agree more. With the advent of property websites like Right Move, I keep hoping that eventually they will be a thing of the past and people can just put their own properties up there, perhaps having first paid for a professional valuation. Nothing more needed.

Don't use one. We saved 3 grand by doing it ourselves. It did make me wish I had used one at times as it was hard work. But like I said the pay-off was saving the money.

That's a brilliant idea Goosey - why isn't that happening already? It seems a very logical and sensible thing to be able to do.

Feckers.

I am v grumpy with ours, having just had to knock a great wodge off the asking price of ours because apparently I was too optimistic with the original price.

You valued it you overpaid sleaze-bags who always reek of cheap aftershave and wear too much hair gel.

And they let someone rip the sheet of high gloss MDF off the front of the boiler, thus ruining it, while on a viewing on Saturday. (It needed unscrewing, which they knew).

Definitely paid too much to essentially take some photos and look after a key. And get valuations massively wrong.

If I get any medical problems in the future due to my increased alcohol consumption since we put our house on the market I may try my luck with one of those 'No win, no fee' jobbies for compensation.

you obviously dont have a bloody clue...

I trained as an estate agent when i was 17 my duties were:

• Call a minimum of 50 people a day - To see if they have found a house/tell them about new houses on the market etc etc.
• Arrange a minimum of 40 viewings a day for the buyer to view within 7 days.
• Sell a minimum of 5 houses a week.
• Update the house details files ensuring there was enough details in the draws, if not printing and filing - this was everyday

On top of this I had to go out on viewings and also do valuations.

I would start at 8am and sometimes not finish untill 8pm sometimes later, i worked 6 days a week.

My salary?! £13,500pa basic and then £200 per house that completed (not sold, completed and moved in) i had to use my own car and never got any bloody thanks for it!

Interesting that the person who did it themselves said it was "bloody hard work". They must do something, then...

If you used Rightmove, and were able to do so without going through an agent, dont be under any delusion that Rightmove wouldn't charge you a hefty fee. Think how much eBay charge you for selling a high value item - well a house is about as high value as they get. £££.

You are essentially paying for their shop front and contacts in addition to what they do administration wise. Its all very well saying they do nothing if you have an easy straightfoward sale, but if you are involved in a long chain and your buyer pulls out, you are damn well grateful for their shop front and hot buyer list when they are able to pounce on the phones and find you a new buyer within 24 hours, saving you your dream home and stopping the rest of the chain from collapsing. You couldn't do that on your own - you'd be at the mercy of who happened to click on the website and whether they did anything about the fact that they quite liked the look of your home...

It may seem like they do nothing when you have a very straightfoward sale that goes smoothly and exchanges and completes without hassle - but essentially that is what you are paying them to do, sell your house and get you to that point as quickly as possible - so what's the problem? If you have an issue with their fee before you sign the contract, dont sign it.

They do more than you might think in terms of chasing and the client database.

boilingpoint - I suspect that in the past it was very hard work. However, I think things may have changed a lot in the last couple of years and most people shop around the internet and identify houses they would like to view on that basis. The agents who sold my last house arranged 2 viewings. The other people who came all said that they had found the house on the internet and in the end, I sold it myself to someone I knew.

tatty - 'when they are able to pounce on the phones and find you a new buyer within 24 hours'. Indeed, or perhaps if they are...

I was deeply unimpressed last year when we briefly had our flat on the market. We were going to relocate, as DP had been working down south for a year and we were fed up with the commuting. So, we paid about £650 for the home report (we're in Scotland, where you still have to get one), about £300 for the 'marketing fee' and then when DP got a job up here a few weeks later and we took it off the market, they wanted £200 to stop selling it. And before you say, 'ah but they'd done all that work and no money', they also demand £200 from you if you want to move agents if they don't sell it ater 9 months. And in the time it was on the market, we got 2 viewers, one of whom was the nosy old lady from the end of the road wanting a poke round the bathroom cupboards.

That Sarah Beeny has a site called Tilapia where you can sell your own property. Don't know how well it's doing, but hope it takes off.

Sorry. Tepilo, not tilapia (which is a kind of fish )

The trouble with trying to sell yourself is that people are put off if there's no intermediary to deal through / negotiate with. I know that we've seen houses for sale privately which we probably would have viewed if they were on with an agent, but because you actually have to phone the person whose house it is (and subsequently negotiate direct with them), I've always shied away from actually doing it!

I suspect that - in most cases at least - there is actually a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.

A friend of mine is temporarily working as a broker and she spends months going without a sale when she is not paid a bean. Admittedly when she does make a sale, she gets quite a lot of money but the uncertainty is awful and I certainly wouldn't want her job.

Bramshott you might have missed out on a potential bargain doing that. We became very friendly with the person we sold our house to and were more flexible in our deal as we didn't have a £3000 chunk to factor in. Also as we spoke directly we were able to arrange things like measuring up, the inventory lists, moving days far easier.

I did think this but...the last house I sold I accepted an offer £5,000 under the asking price because we needed to move quickly. The estate agent, in her words, "worked on" the buyer and got another £4000 out of him!

Well, that paid the estate agents fees anyway

It?s a business! They have to cover their overheads which include advertising your property in papers and online (the cost of this is huge). They have to print full colour details, pay rental on their office, telephone bills, electricity, the cost of a decent computer program is massive- as in thousands a month, petrol, insurance?s, staff wages, governing body membership fees.

I find it baffling that people don't realise or forget the costs involved in running a business.

By all means sell your house yourself, you probably wont achieve a price as high as an EA would get you (great if your a buyer though) even taking into account the lesser selling fee you would probably be better off using an agent.

When things go tits its will be your EA not your conveyancer who?s doing the running around fixing things trying to keep a sale together. Conveyancers get there costs covered whether a sale completes or not, EA's don't. EA's chase the sale through, liaising with both solicitors, the vendors and purchasers and they also speak to the other agents in the chain to try and ensure all goes as it should.

A couple of years ago Tesco tried to launch an online EA it went nowhere pretty quick because it?s not an easy thing to do! Sarah beanys site looks crap, she?s also a liar in saying the average selling fee is 2% of the selling price its never more than 1.25 sole and 1.5% multi unless you use someone like K&C where it goes up around 0.25% for each option. God knows where you got 3% from OP!

Re the agent asking you to do the viewing- I'm 99% sure its because there would have been no one free to do the viewing for you and rather than risk them going to look at other properties and finding elsewhere they thought it best to see if you would do it. EA's don't normally even want the vendor in the house at the time of a viewing as they can make it uncomfortable for the purchaser.

So in short yes yabu.

Well, I don't know about down south, but in Scotland, the marketing fee for schedules, website, papers etc is a completely separate fee from the commission, paid up front or on completion, so it doesn't come into the equation.

Gooseloosey. I only came out of the industry a year ago so am quite aware of the changes etc.

JeremyKylesPetProject - yes, I'm sure we could have been, but there was just something which meant I couldn't pick up the phone and make an appointment with someone personally, to see their house !

Yes I agree. I would prefer to pay the solicitor more if they sped things up a bit instead of just looking at the files once a week or whatever.

anyone who pay 3% in fees is a fool. Estate agents fees are not set in stone and it is down to you to negotiate the best price.

YANBU

Why aren't estate agents obsolete yet?
I thought the advent of the internet would wipe them out completely.
They are totally unnecessary in the process of buying and selling property.
The last property we sold was through the classified ads. Saved myself £4k.

Today I hate our estate agent. Today we are probably taking our house off the market.

However, despite my loathing, I can see that that means they will not get anything for any of the marketing they have already done so each house is a risk and therefore the rewards do have to go up.

Our first estate agents also blamed us for the inaccurate valuation of our flat (Stroppy little madam: "You've got to understand it's not an exact science" Me: "Why am I paying you two per cent for your 'expertise', then?") and booked nine viewings in two months, three of which didn't show up. They also didn't show up in the viewing log when we demanded to see it, so I strongly suspect those viewers were fictional. Bag o shite.

In fairness, the second ones were lovely, but their valuing was no more accurate than mine after a few months looking at property in the area. You are basically paying not to have to do it yourself, not for any arcane skills they possess.

I live in the North East and most aren't paid any more than an admin assistant.

I live in the North East and most aren't paid any more than an admin assistant.